Conventionally, an autonomous movement system is disclosed which estimates a self-position and moves according to a target path, with reference to map data responding to real environment, based on data of measurement devices (internal sensor and/or external sensor) installed in a moving object indoors and/or outdoors (see Patent Literatures 1, 2).
An autonomous movement system described in Patent Literature 1 sequentially performs matching of shape data of a peripheral object (hereinafter referred to as object shape data) acquired by a measurement device (distance sensor as an external sensor) at the current time, with object shape data acquired at a different location from the actual location at one previous time. Then, the autonomous movement system synthesizes the object shape data based on a result of the matching. Further, the autonomous movement system repeats synthesis of the object shape data to thereby generate map data.
Patent Literature 2 describes a technique in which landmarks serving as marks are placed in a travel environment and autonomous travel is performed while these landmarks are recognized with cameras.